A low-performing group of employees could have too many that get bumped up to an excellent or acceptable rating. Likely the most commonly cited concern is the possibility of employees being wedged into categories that don’t accurately reflect their performance. There are a variety of reasons these rating systems have fallen from favor. Cons of Managing Performance on a Bell Curve This can especially be true for employees in functions that tend to be highly competitive, such as sales. When employees know they will be evaluated on their performance and that there could be serious consequences for being placed at the bottom, they are likely to work hard to try and avoid it. The ratings require managers to be clear with their employees and resolve issues that, without a forced rating system or some other kind of clear accountability, they might be tempted to ignore or sweep under the rug to avoid difficult conversations. This transparency applies to leadership behaviors as well. Plenty of research shows that employees want to receive feedback on their status, and these ratings definitely provide clarity. In some less structured performance management systems, employees may not have a clear understanding of their status with the company. Employees know where they stand, and it is clear when improvement is required. While forced ranking systems have been described as “brutal,” the flip side of that opinion is that they leave little room for misunderstanding. Pros of Managing Performance on a Bell Curveĭespite the movement away from this style of performance management, there are legitimate reasons it was such a popular system for so long. In the years since, bell curve performance management has largely fallen from favor, and many Fortune 500 companies (including GE) have moved away from it-even eliminating ratings entirely, in some cases. GE was one of the most valuable companies in the United States at the time, and was famous for its “rank and yank” system, where the bottom 10% of employees each year were fired. It reached its peak in popularity during the 1980s and 1990s, in part due to the success of General Electric. This style of performance management used to be one of the most common systems, particularly in large corporations. This is called a bell curve, in reference to a statistical concept where the majority of data falls somewhere in the middle, with smaller amounts on the high and low ends of the spectrum. Often referred to as “forced ranking,” bell curve performance management refers to corporate rating systems that require leaders to annually rank their employees from top to bottom and assign predetermined percentages of excellent, acceptable, and bad ratings (or equivalent labels).įor example, one of the most common setups is to label approximately the top 20% of employees excellent performers, the middle 70% acceptable or good performers, and the bottom 10% as underperformers. What Is Bell Curve Performance Management?
0 kommentar(er)
